Chapter 14 #2
I shoved off the bed and headed for the door, but not before slashing Bastian’s favorite jacket on my way out.
This stupid fucking bet needed to be called off.
Sooner or later, Rynn would find out and be pissed.
Not just at Bastian, but at all of us for not telling her.
I couldn’t tell her though because that felt like betraying Bastian and Cade.
Rynn was right. My loyalty was divided, and I had no idea what to do about it.
In the meantime, I could at least get Bastian to drop the bet bullshit so Rynn didn’t find out and kill us all in our sleep and so I didn’t have to murder him for touching her.
Turning left, I stalked down the hallway once more, following Rynn’s scent into a stairwell, this one narrower than the main one I’d come up.
When I reached the ground floor, I slowed, my brows bunching together.
I’d assumed Rynn had taken this stairwell to avoid having to talk to anyone, since, based on the mostly stale scents, this one wasn’t used all that often, but she’d kept going instead of exiting here.
Maybe she had a study or something down there? Rynn did like having her own space. I could see her selecting an out-of-the-way room where people would leave her alone . . . but it didn’t seem like her to choose one underground.
The feeling of claustrophobia grew as I continued my descent, level after level, until finally reaching the bottom.
There was no way Rynn would have chosen to have her study down here.
I knew for a fact that she regularly read in front of the balcony in her room.
And in the library, which was one of the few rooms in our home that still had all its walls intact, she always chose to sit near the windows.
So what was she doing down here?
Fae lanterns gave off a soft golden glow as I quietly strode down a narrow passage. On either side of me were solid wood doors with inlaid iron bars crisscrossing them.
This was a Fae dungeon.
Not all that surprising. While not every castle had a dungeon level, quite a few did.
For the second time, I found myself in front of a door. Rynn had gone to the end of this dead-end hallway, but she’d stopped in this room first. No one else’s scent was here. Just hers.
I raised my hand to push the door open but froze with my fingers against the wood as I cocked my head to the side. Two distinct pairs of footsteps echoed down the stairwell, too far up for me to catch their scents.
“Why would Rynn come down here?” I heard Bastian ask. To anyone else, his voice likely sounded polite, but I heard the tension in it. Whether it was there because of Rynn or my presence was a toss-up.
Probably both.
Not waiting for Bastian and his companion’s arrival, I pushed the door, and it silently swung open. A standard prison cell greeted me. I stared at the single cot with a ratty blanket pressed against one wall. Rynn’s scent still clung to it.
Why would she have come here? To this cell?
There were no other clues to be found, and the only scent was hers from today. Had she known someone who had been kept down here?
“Why was Rynn in here?” Bastian asked a second before he appeared at my side.
Not Why are you here? or Cade’s going to be pissed at you.
Apparently, we both had one-track minds where Rynn was concerned.
“Ryker,” the man who’d come with Bastian said cautiously from the cell door. Rynn’s brother. I couldn’t be bothered to remember his name or look at him, but I remembered his scent.
And that scent now had the sharp taste of fear.
It wasn’t just for me either. I’d met him before, and while wary of me, it hadn’t been like this. Rynn had a connection to this cell, and he was worried about how we would react to it.
“She doesn’t have a room in the main castle.” Bastian barely breathed those words before he was gone from my side. I didn’t have time to process what the hells that meant before the sound of a body being slammed against stone had me lunging out of the cell.
“Bas!” I yelled and gripped his wrist, trying to keep him from opening up Rynn’s brother’s throat with the dagger he had pressed against it. Rynn probably wouldn’t be happy if we killed her brother.
Although she’d never mentioned him . . . so maybe she’d thank us?
“You have thirty seconds to explain, Sorin.” Bastian pushed the blade harder, and I strained to pull it back. It was easy to forget how strong he was because I usually brawled with Cade or Warrick when they were around, but at least I got Rynn’s brother’s name now.
“She’ll never forgive you if you kill me,” Sorin rasped as he glared at Bastian.
His eye color only matched one of hers, but that look was all Rynn. Throwing all my strength into it, I wrenched Bastian away from him and stepped between the two of them.
“Move.” Bastian’s gaze remained locked on Sorin. “Or I’ll move you.”
“No you won’t.” I snorted. “If you slice open Sorin’s throat, he won’t be able to explain Rynn’s connection to that cell or where our dear packmate is at the moment. Give yourself a moment to process that and then put the fucking dagger away.”
Was this the first time I’d been the voice of reason? I was mildly annoyed Cade wasn’t here to see it.
Bastian and Sorin stared each other down until Bastian finally relaxed and slid the dagger back into the holster on his thigh. “Fine, but when we kill him later, you’re dealing with the body. What Rynn doesn’t know won’t hurt her.”
“She’ll notice I’m gone, asshole.” Sorin bared his teeth.
“Funny. You two haven’t corresponded once since she’s been with us,” Bastian drawled. “So forgive me for doubting your protective sibling act.”
It was fast, but I caught the way Sorin winced at that. Maybe Bastian was right and he had done something that meant we’d be killing him tonight.
“Things between us are . . . complicated.” Sorin swallowed and looked away, but when his gaze returned to mine a moment later, it shone with fierce determination. “But never doubt that I love my sister.”
“Then tell me this isn’t Rynn’s room.” Bastian pointed to the bed against the wall. “Tell me her fucking twin didn’t allow her to be confined to a fucking cell.”
Every thought emptied out of my head. It had never occurred to me that Rynn had stopped here because she’d been the one sleeping on that pathetic cot. My fiery little wolf.
“You let them cage her?” My question hung in the air.
“I didn’t let them do anything,” Sorin growled. “What the fuck did you assholes think was going to happen? Nobody asked Rynn if she wanted to join your pack. She was fucking fifteen when this was being discussed and had no choice in the matter.”
“We didn’t like it either,” Bastian snapped. “And we made that very clear to your father and uncle. When they refused to budge, we kept our distance so she could have a normal life before joining our pack.”
“A ‘normal life’?” Sorin scoffed. “My father made sure everyone knew Rynn was no longer a member of our pack the second that agreement was signed. She was packless, surrounded by people who either shunned her or wanted to use her.”
The agreement had been made ten years ago. Ironically the same year Warrick had found me and brought me home, although that had been months later. I’d lost my family but found a new one with the Alphas. Rynn had only lost hers.
I thought about the sentry on the way in and his hostility towards Rynn, and how no one had questioned me when I’d demanded to know where she was. They all thought I was a monster who slaughtered people with no thought and pointed me in Rynn’s direction like it was nothing.
Because they didn’t claim Rynn as theirs. Hadn’t for a long time.
When I glanced at Bastian, he seemed equally stricken.
He was far more observant than I was when it came to social settings, and he and Rynn had arrived here yesterday.
I could practically see the observations he’d made during that time clicking in his head as he held them up against this new knowledge.
“The cell?” I turned my gaze back to the dark room. “When did that happen?”
Rynn had mostly lived at Drudonia over the past decade. It was only in the last two years that she’d returned to the Narchis stronghold as she’d stalled coming to the Alphas.
Some of the fire dimmed in Sorin’s eyes. “Our uncle wasn’t happy when Rynn came back here instead of going straight to the Alpha stronghold after she finished her studies, especially when Cade pushed for her to move in with you pricks.”
Bastian slumped against the wall on one side of the door and ran a hand through his hair, messing it up a little.
“I remember that. There were . . . problems with the Fervis Order. They made claims that our allegiance to the Narchis Order was weakening, and we thought Rynn’s presence would quell those rumors. ”
I leaned against the doorframe, and Sorin took up a similar position on his side of the wall as he stared at the floor between us. “Our mother got sick around that time and Rynn didn’t want to leave her. That was genuine,” he said quickly. “She wasn’t using it as an excuse not to go to you.”
“We never thought she was,” Bastian muttered, and I made a noise of agreement. Back then, I’d been frustrated at Rynn just because I hadn’t understood why she didn’t want to be a part of our pack. The Alphas were everything to me, but I understood one’s obligation to family, and so had they.
“Yeah, well, you could have made that more clear,” Sorin snapped, raising his head to look at us.
“Altair told our father to fix it, so Rynn was thrown down here. She was given the option of staying in that cell and seeing our mother for one hour a day or immediately going to the Alpha stronghold. She chose to stay.”
My hands pressed against the cold stone behind me. She’d chosen to suffer through this hell to spend just a little more time with her mother. “And you?” I rasped. “What did you do?”